Chen works at the Open Technology Center at Microsoft where his responsibilities include promoting open source IoT technologies, open data interface standard of OData in Chinese standardization and application, as well as the construction and implementation of open government data platforms and applications. He joined Microsoft in May 2012 and is currently a member of the Chinese Communications Standards Association (CCSA) and the National Committee for Standardization (NITS) in cloud computing, Web/HTML5 and big data standards.

Tell us about the IoT Asia 2016. What were your key takeaways from the show?

The keynotes and panel discussions were received with strong support by the Singapore government and the “Smart Nation” Gov initiative. I also observed both a strong interest and concern from the Singapore government regarding the IoT industry. IoT industry leads like Advantech, Microsoft, ST, MTK, Oracle and Intel demonstrated their IoT solutions, with Smart Home getting the most attention and support.

What was your participation at IoT Asia?

I participated in a fireside panel discussion on March 30 titled, "Getting to Deployment - Overcoming the Grand Challenges,” hosted by panel moderator Bob Gill, general manager of ARC Advisory Group in Singapore, and joined by Chris Wood, CTO and Founder of Xped, Jorey Guzman, director of product management factory Automation, and Casey Taninguchi, general manager of the Corporate Strategy Division for Yokogawa Electric Corporation. We discussed the frameworks for evolving in a hyper-connected world.

The session was well-attended with an estimated 500 people who were following three IoT Asia tracks, including Smart Cities, Industrial IoT and Design Applications. The audience were mostly from the business side, and seeking to understand the big picture value potential to be derived from IoT and how to deploy IoT solutions, like AllJoyn, to gain competitive advantage.

What key point did you make in the panel?

In the discussion about the biggest challenges the IoT faces, I discussed ROI with the group and how to determine whether an IoT application will bring real business value to the industry. Interoperability is critical for ensuring the success of the IoT industry, and it’s exciting to see AllJoyn bringing that seamless interoperability to the smart home industry.

There are plenty of successful use cases across the various IoT verticals that are driving the IoT market forward. I illustrated the following:

Wearable devices: In China, tens of millions of smart bracelets are sold every year.

Government smart city initiatives: Sensor technology mitigates air pollution and noise.